The Iranian Caper

Argo is in part a movie about a fake movie that was used as a cover to smuggle six American diplomats out of Iran during the 1979 Revolution. Now that movie has spawned another movie: Iran's Mehr News has announced that the state-affiliated Arts Bureau is producing a film in "response" to Ben Affleck's "ahistoric" feature, to correct the record. The General Staff, by title alone, promises to be the worst of the three Argo-related movies. The story seems to be about a different group of diplomats who were released as a humanitarian gesture during the revolution, with Iran officials playing the role of peaceable hosts (wonder what their take on Zero Dark Thirty would be!). Somewhere, those who protestedArgo's minor slighting of Canada's involvement in the Canadian Caper are now just giving up and crying.

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It's easy to imagine the Iran government's response to Argo as an SNL parody, but The General Staff, unlike Ben Affleck's thriller, is worthy of real outrage. Last year, Iranian director Jafar Panahi released This Is Not a Film, made during his time under house arrest in his home country, where he was charged a few years ago with committing propaganda because his movies happened to be true. Panahi was banned from making movies or leaving the country. So how did anyone see This Is Not a Film? It was smuggled out of the country, like a pack of stranded diplomats, in a cake. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apparently missed the irony.